A ‘sex recession’: Is porn to blame?

Constant connectivity can lead to disconnection.(Getty)

“These should be boom times for sex,” said Kate Julian in The Atlantic. Moral acceptance of premarital sex is “at an all-time high,” birth control is easily accessible, and people can find hook-up partners on dating apps without leaving home. “Despite all this,” the world is experiencing a mystifying “sex recession.” Surveys have found that high school students who are sexually active dropped from 54 percent to 40 percent over the past 25 years, while people in their early 20s “are two and a half times as likely to be abstinent as Gen Xers were at that age.” There are numerous diagnoses for the decline in sex, including the distraction of smartphones and TV, obesity, and the explosion of online porn. Instead of having sex with real human beings, many young men and women (who are buying vibrators at an unprecedented rate) are choosing masturbation.

Internet porn is a real factor, said Belinda Luscombe in Time.com, but so is the postponement of marriage. Americans are waiting longer to get married than they once did, and the reality is that married people have more sex than single ones. At the same time, “the changing conversation around consent and sexual advances” brought on by #MeToo has made males uncertain about sex and created awkwardness in fledgling relationships. Young people face other “red flags,” too, said Heidi Stevens in the Chicago Tribune. A record number of adults under 35 live with their parents, which has a definite chilling effect. Dating apps often act as addictive games that produce more frustration than connection. These forces “are swirling together into a storm,” leaving legions of people feeling lonely and disconnected.

We conservatives tried to warn you about the sexual revolution, said Ross Douthat in The New York Times, although we were wrong about where it would lead. We assumed it would lead to rampant coupling, and epidemics of teen pregnancy, abortion, rape, and sexual violence. Instead, “some combination of Netflix, Tinder, Instagram, and masturbation” has had a “tranquilizing effect.” Liberals, on the other hand, believed freedom from old norms would bring “sexual fulfillment.” Instead, it’s led to “the growing alienation of the sexes from one another.” In our new sterility, “virtual sex” has become the opiate of the frustrated masses. ■